Many recipes for the preparation and cooking of food call for continuous stirring while it is being simmered or cooked. This is usually required in the preparation of sauces, soups or the like which must be slowly heated as they have a tendency to scald or burn. Many of these sauces or soups are prepared with the use of milk or other ingredients which have a tendency to lose their taste and develop unpleasant characteristics if they are improperly prepared. A slow and continuous stirring of these foods may make all the difference in whether an excellent dish results, instead of one that is lumpy, containing cold chunks of unmixed ingredients, with an overheated or scalded skin formation floating on its surface.
Unfortunately, a cook preparing a meal can devote only a limited amount of attention to each of several dishes which he may be preparing simultaneously. This effectively limits the time and care a cook can take in the preparation of one of these dishes. Hence, a cook may decide not to make these types of dishes or may make them but produce inferior food.
To solve this problem, applicant has developed an automatic stirring device which can be fitted directly on a cooking utensil such as a frying pan or the like and which will continuously stir the contents thereof at a preselected speed.
Applicant's device generally includes an overall housing structure with one or more support arms to rest on a cooking utensil and support it therefrom. Grippers are provided in each of the support arms and a spring bias automatically exerts a gripping force which tends to grip the sides of the utensil and prevent the stirring device from spinning as it agitates. An agitator blade is driven by a motor which has a variable speed control. The agitator blade may be adjusted to fit various sized utensils and extend completely across the bottom surface to ensure that all portions of the food are thoroughly mixed.
Applicant's device is also self cleaning as it is provided with support pins which screw into each of the support arms to support it in a shallow pan of soapy water where it may be turned on to sweep the blades through the soapy water. Likewise, the blades may be rinsed and applicant's stirring device made ready for reuse while the cook it tending to other tasks.